[opportune]

Most modern “prodigies” are different from those of the past, the main huge difference being that they have insanely motivated tiger parents working the marketing machine and the system to accelerate their child. And indeed a lot of these children are not actually special any more once their non-accelerated peers catch up.

Terence Tao is a bit of an exception because he is genuinely a far outlier in talent, and he also got a lot of direct tutoring from world-leading mathematicians (like historical prodigies). Like historical prodigies his achievements spoke for themselves, he may have had an accelerated academic career, but it was not the acceleration itself that was noteworthy.

There are plenty of prodigy-level children you never hear about in the news who don’t have parents working the system on their behalf. IMO the news articles like “tested out of HS via GED at 14 and enrolled in local commuter college” is the 30 under 30 of prodigies. Many children could do that, and it’s not even really an indicator of prodigy as much as it is being maybe at the 99%ile.